War for the Skies (completed) (Book 1 of the Heroes of the Realms series)

Chapter 35

After Lukas greeted us all goodbye, we went through the door and into the Hall of Pandora. When we were on the other side, we were on the first floor of the mansion, not the one we had come through. I guess Pandora was right about all of the doors changing.

The instant we walked through, we were greeted by Skylar's smile, and she ran toward us, hugging everyone one by one, until she came to Aurora, my sister, and Calypso.

"Who are they?" she asked, pointing at Cally and my sister.

"Skylar, this is my sister, Anne, and Anne this is Skylar," I moved on to Calypso, "Skylar, this is Calypso, Calypso this is Skylar."

Skylar seemed happier than ever, and smiled widely at the news. "Well, nice to meet you!" and she hugged both of them.

We went into the kitchen, greeted Pandora and talked about all that had happened, and our next plan. We had to go through another door, obviously, but which one would it be? We also asked Skylar if she could interview Calypso herself, just to make sure she was being honest. Neither of them looked happy about it, but they agreed.

So we went into Pandora's living room-- all of us this time-- and sat Cally down onto a chair, and Skylar across from her on another. "What do you remember?" I asked Cally.

"Nothing much... I already told you..." she looked at me. I pointed at Skylar, then she nodded in understanding and looked into Skylar's eyes, saying the same thing. Skylar was silent for a minute, reading Cally's thoughts I guess.

"She's being honest," Skylar told everybody. "I can't dig deep in her mind, meaning either she has some sort of magic covering up her memories so I can't enter, or she really can't remember anything."

"Can you tell which?"

"No, sorry."

I put my hands to my chin. "Well, there's nothing else we can do, so..."

"We take her?" Theo looked shocked.

"What do you suggest?" I asked.

Theo looked angry, as if he were going to burst into flames and burn the place down, but he remained calm and silent.

"The plans are settled then. My sister and Aurora are staying here with Pandora. Lukas is in Techaract. It's just us four, on the journey," I said, gesturing to Skylar, Cally and Theo.

"Well then, when do we leave?" Theo asked, sitting down on a chair.

"Now," I replied calmly.

Everybody's heads turned toward me.

"We don't have time! You saw that armada of ships right? I was able to come back from the bolt once, but..." my voice drifted off. "I might not be able to do that again. We have to stop them before it's too late."

"But which door?" my sister asked.

"Any. The Cursed probably have a gateway to every single Realm by now, or most of them, anyway. We have a high chance of being able to get into that gateway, but this time," I looked at Cally, "We won't have her stop us."

Cally looked embarrassed and looked away.

"Don't you think it's dangerous to go into a random Realm, and then go directly into the headquarters of the people who are trying to kill us?" Skylar argued.

"What other choice do we have?!" I screamed in exasperation. "Everybody is objecting against me, then find a better plan, does anybody have one?"

I looked around at everybody shaking their heads.

"Look guys, we have to take action, we can't continue sitting around in circles arguing about what to do. We have to do something! If the Cursed take over the Sky, they can take over anywhere: first the Earth, then they will move onto other Realms, cursing everything in their way. Do you guys want to live your lives as mindless spirits forever? Or do you want to stop them, so we can live happily ever after when we're done?"

Everybody fell silent.

"Leon's right," Theo said, standing up. "Recently, we've been doing nothing except deciding on what to do next, even though we haven't done anything yet. We have nowhere else to go anyway."

Skylar and Cally both stood up.

"Okay, everybody who's coming, pack whatever you need, we're going on a long adventure."

After about an hour of packing, we stood in front of a random door, looking at each other.

"Ready?" I asked.

Everybody nodded.

I opened the door and all of us walked through.

Strangely, the place we woke up in, was less warlike than Techaract. Once I got a good look at our surroundings, it actually looked like paradise.

Long, thick, green trees roofed a long forest, with a few openings to let the beautiful-- I was going to say sunlight but we were in another Realm--light in.

There was a light blue colored lake in front of us, and small creatures drank from it, and a few fish-like things jumped up to the surface then swam back down every once in a while.

Theo, as if reading my mind, said "Whoa..." spinning around and taking a good look of everything.

"Be careful," I told him. "You can burn this whole place down in a minute."

"Dude, this wood looks impenetrable," he shot a small ball of fire at a tree stump.

Surely enough, the fire just made a small explosion, but didn't burn even the grass beneath the stump.

"Where are we?" Cally asked. "Is this Aspenbarrow? The place I've been hearing about for years before my dad took me away?"

"No," Skylar said. "This place is much more different. Aspenbarrow would have many people living and thriving in it. This Realm just looks abandoned and... dead."

"How does it look dead?" Theo threw his hands into the air. "Look at all of this nature."

"Dead as in, whatever lived here, other than plants, like the civilization... it's-- they're gone."

I noticed that as she said it. The place had animals in it, sure, but there was no smoke in the visible sky, or any type of commotional noise. The place looked empty of any sort of civilization.

"Well, this wasn't it, I guess we should go ba--" just as Skylar turned around while she said that, we all noticed the door had disappeared.

"What happened to the door?" she asked, obviously starting to panic.

"No, no, no, no!" Theo screamed and kicked the grass.

Everybody was panicking and screaming, so I shouted "GUYS!"

My voice echoed through the forest, and I could hear a flock of birds fly away in fear.

"This is what we came here for! We need to find the Cursed Realm, and now!"

"Leon, we have no way back! What if some sort of monster lives here? What if it's made to look like a paradise, but everything here is poisonous to humans! There are so many things that can happen!" Skylar grabbed my shirt in despair.

We heard a rumbling behind me.

"What is that?" Cally asked.

Another rumble. Then another, and another, like something was walking towards us. "What did I tell you?" Skylar whimpered into my ear.

Why was she so panicky?

The trees in front of us all broke down, and then slammed into the ground, sending up a bunch of dust, making us cover our eyes.

When we opened them up again, a giant monster was standing before us, made of trees, but very hungrily looking at us like a carnivore.