Alesandese

Chapter Seven

Hello, lovelies. How are you this Monday? I hope you spent Mother's Day with your families, and especially your precious mothers. I am sure they appreciated just having you close to them :)

I also hope this week brings you blessings and happiness!

Enjoy!

<><><><><><><><><><>

I hear a shaky breath and look up from the letter and see dad crying. "Dad," I whimper and hug him close. I want to comfort him so badly and show him how much I love him, but like mom wrote in the letter – time is not on our side."We have to go, Dad." I say, a strong tone in my voice. Dad pulls away from me but his gaze is still on my face.

"You're so brave, my little warrior. I couldn't be more proud of you." says Dad and strokes my cheek. I take hold of his hand and step up onto the ledge of the well and stare down into the darkness. I feel my heart beating hard inside my ribcage. "Ready in three," dad says. I squeeze his hand harder.

"Two," I take a deep breath.

"One..." I close my eyes.

"Jump!" Dad says and we both do.

Everything turns pitch black...

-

For a second everything is black but the very next there are lights bursting out in front of my eyes. It is so very bright, it almost feels like they are going to burn off my Retina. It feels like a thousand galaxies are surrounding us, and millions of stars are shining down on us, oh so brightly! What hurts more is my body, it feels like I'm being pulled in all directions.

I can't take it anymore! I'm going to die!

Have you ever had that dream where you're falling from a very tall building and just before you hit the ground you wake up in cold sweat?

That's how I feel right now except I felt the actual impact of the fall. I groan loudly and blink my eyes to remove the blurriness. It's like the light of the millions of stars are still burned into my Retina. I rub my thumbs against my eyes, trying to press out the light.

"Alesandese," I hear Dad groan. "Are you okay? Please speak to me!"

"I'm fine Dad," I say and look around the area but it's too dark to see anything. I start to panic when suddenly it hits me when I reach full conscious.

The cold!

"D-dad," I stutter. My whole body is shaking violently from the blistering cold that is slowly freezing my body. "I can't see anything," I put my hand against something solid and stand up on shaky legs.

"Just a moment Alesandese," Dad says, I hear him rummaging through his backpack. "Here it is," he murmurs to himself. A sudden light appears near his face. It's a flashlight. I sigh in relief, seeing Dad's face calms me down, at least for a bit. I gasp in wonder when the light reflects against the walls. Hundreds of glimmering crystals are surrounding us from all sides. They almost look like diamonds...

"Where are we?" I ask, my teeth chattering from the intense cold. I wrap my arms around myself but what help is that?

"I know that we're in a cave or so the map says," Dad explains, looking closely at the map. I walk closer and look as well and find myself understanding nothing. Orientation isn't my strongest point.

"What if we can't find the village Mom wrote about in the letter?" I ask nervously. Dad shakes his head.

"We're going to find it, I just need to-" Dad trails off and studies the map intently. "I think the village is not far away from the exit of this cave," he tells me.