A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Two: Part Four

In about five minutes, I had wandered into an unfamiliar hallway.

“Okay, maybe I should go back now.” I whispered under my breath as I twirled around to retake the path I had followed. However, when I turned around, it seemed as if the path that had been behind me had morphed itself into something new.

“Oh my god!”

I swirled my body forward and burst into a run. I swerved around random corners and through random turns until I spotted a familiar stairway up ahead.

“I found it!” I cheered as I approached the stairway. I trampled down the long, curved stairway with the bright red carpet beneath my feet. Though as I reached the bottom of the stairway, my delighted smile had faded.

What the stairway had led to was an exaggeratedly lengthy table, with one end of the table far across the room from the other. I had never seen this table before, so I inferred that there was more than one curved staircase.

Unwilling to return back upstairs to that deadly maze, I dashed past the long table and through another doorway.

Ten minutes and approximately five doorways later, I finally stumbled upon a room with walls lined by shiny, spotless stoves.

“This must be the kitchen!” I happily chirped. As I stepped onto the polished wooden floors of the kitchen, I peered at the walls. I skimmed across the counters, pulled open drawers, whipped open cabinets—and basically what I found were an exaggerated amount of knives, utensils, and unfamiliar machines that I didn’t recognize.

“I guess there’s something exaggerated in every room, isn’t there?” I murmured, shoving an open drawer closed. There was obviously no food here, unless the people who lived here fed off of knives, forks, spoons, and electrical cooking devices.

As I turned around to head out of the kitchen, something stopped me. I had bumped into something and I jerked away.

“Oh, I’m sorry—“ I was interrupted by merely the face of what I had bumped into.

The figure’s eyes were small and beady, and his arms were so muscular, they looked like they would explode at any given second. Across his throat were thick veins. The white garnet that he wore had red liquid splattered across his chest. And in his hands, which my eyes were currently occupied by, was a giant, razor-sharp axe the size of my head. It was dripping red liquid onto the floor.

“WHO ARE YOU!?!?!” the figure bellowed in a large, deep voice as he whipped his axe through the air.

I let out an ear-piercing scream as I stumbled backwards.

“ARE YOU A BURGLAR?!” the figure roared, taking another swing with his axe. “GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!”

I klutzily dashed through the kitchen as The Hulk attempted to slice me into kabobs with his exaggeratedly large axe.

I maintained one non-stop, screeching, ear-piercing scream through these terrifying seconds of my life as I stumbled out of the kitchen and rushed through another random doorway. I was grateful to escape all in one piece.

In less than five seconds of running, I had collided into something and I immediately lunged backwards.

“I’m not a burglar!” I shouted, holding my arms curled before me in defense. “I’m just a person! Please don’t hurt me!”

“What are you doing here?” a soft voice answered as a shadow loomed over me. I glanced up from behind my arms at a familiar boy. Familiar, flawlessly blonde locks hung against his forehead.

“I-I—“ I stammered nervously, staring down at the marbled floors and searching for word choice. “I-I got lost and I was really hungry, and I went into the kitchen, but I couldn’t find any food, and this huge guy tried to kill me with his man-sized axe, and I—“

“We’re about to be eating dinner now,” he dimly murmured, walking by me through the doorway that stood behind me. “I sent Megane to your room to call you downstairs. I guess there was no use for that, then.”

I slowly followed after him, trailing a few feet behind him. I inferred that he was approaching the location of dinner, and I didn’t hesitate to follow him.