Disney's Wondrous Secrets

Waking in the Dark

The world around her felt heavy, cold and her vision came back to her all shaky and watery. Her head pounded and she felt that she was being dragged across cold brick and concrete with the snappings and snarlings of all too familiar hyenas. It all began to die away, however... when she began to hear truly familiar voices, panicked ones of her friend, Kate, after all the trouble before, she was there. Her shoulders were gripped tight and she was shaken up before Sarah dizzily had to open her eyes.

Another kid, just like her was looking down at her face, with messed up brown hair and frightened brown eyes, Sarah fully realized who it was. It was Kate! As the haze of pain began to float away, Sarah finally got the motivation to speak.

"K-kate... Kate!? What are you — !? How did you get here!? What—!?" Sarah stammered, finally sitting up.

Seconds later, she realized that the place they were in was overall strange and it just confirmed that this was still a solid reality... She remembered getting her head smacked hard after Dreamer fled away... with a weak and torn Woody in her arms. Something happened, either she blacked out or a spell overcame her - she didn't know, but time flew by and she was now whisked away somewhere else entirely. It looked like they were locked away in a themed corridor of a certain castle. The cold walls and hallways were pitch black, save for one Exit sign light...

"God~ you're awake!" Kate wept, absolutely in a total fix from what she had experienced.

"W-wait~" Sarah stammered, finding that her arm was carefully bandaged. Almost failing to see Lindsey curled with her knees to her chest in the other corner, she stood on her wobbly legs. Right then, the panic was already settling in as she looked around. The ambiance was off but she knew they were inside the walkthrough hallways of Sleeping Beauty Castle. "How did you get here...? It's... where are they? What happened?" Sarah stammered with her adjusting eyes spying a still form at the bottom of the stair beside them.

A traumatized Kate saw Sarah's eyes water before she ran down to that form and scooped it up into her arms. To Kate, she thought it was an abandoned Toy Story doll but she was proved wrong when Sarah began to cry, remembering every single event that happened before. It was no awful nightmare... They were all living in it. Lindsey's wide eyes watched as the two surrounded the torn doll, who was lifeless as anything.

Frollo's final words echoed through Sarah's hazed mind~ Who do you trust more... and it made things all the worse.

"...I was trying to look for you...because I ..." Kate tried to explain, studying Woody's face who looked so calm and strangely alive to her unlike anything else. "... I believed you."

Sarah looked up at her in shock as tears fell down her cheeks. "Kate, I wish you didn't. I really wish you didn't... This is, all this, is so much more than a mouse that can spell. Because..." she spoke between thick sobs. "... because it's too late now."

"Wh-what do you mean...? I saw him. He talked to me! Robin Hood saved us~ I checked the hotel first and at first, I thought we were caught but it was Stitch and this drunk Pirate... and they led us here to hide, but everything else just started to get really weird... That giant snake came out of nowhere~ and we still couldn't find out where you were."

Sarah was truly touched at the thought that her best friend came after her so quickly, but yet again, just like her, she was almost killed tonight~ prisoners, just like everyone else here. But Kate began to realize how crushed she was as she cradled the small Sheriff.

"... Jackie...? Wh-what happened to him?" Kate softened her voice for her friend only to be interrupted by a once stoic Lindsey.

"This is all your fault, isn't it?" was thrown in out of nowhere to the three, prompting Sarah to hold Woody ever closer.