Brave New Enderman

Chapter 8 - Lava Race

They walked down a small corridor and came to some more runes. Lisa read "'RUN RUN, As fast as you can! You better, cause the lava's after you, man! '"

"Did you just say Lava?!"

"I want to say no but..."

"Oh great."

"Will, what about Simon?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's a sheep. I've heard of these things before. It's a lava race. You need to run a course without getting burned. If he gets burned..."

"He won't."

"How do you know?"

"Have a little faith, Lisa. Simon's got this!" the brave sheep baaed.

"Ok. Let's go then." They walked through the door and they came to a long and wide corridor. There was a red line on the floor, dispensers everywhere and a button on the wall. "I know what happens. Once we press that button, we have three seconds to line up at the red line. Then when the timer's up, we need to start running. At different times, lava will pour out of these dispensers. All we need to do is dodge the lava and finish the race."

"Race usually means we're against each other."

"Yeah. Usually. But no. We're in this together. Although, this is a pretty wide corridor. We shouldn't clump together."

"You're the boss." Will was shaking.

"I'm scared too, Will. But this is the only way to get you're torch back."

"Right. My torch." Simon snuggled up to him. Will knelt down and stroked the sheep. "You will make it, Simon. You won't if you believe otherwise. Do you understand?" Simon nodded and baaed.

"Ready?" Will and Simon nodded. Lisa stood by the button. She pressed it and ran back to line up behind the red line on the floor. They heard three beeps and a big horn. 3... 2... 1... GOOO! They started running. They saw lava starting to pour from dispensers in front of them. They were ducking, dodging and diving all over the place.

Before too long, they saw another red line at the end of the corridor. "Lisa! There's the finish line!!"

"It's about time. I had some close calls back there." Lisa mumbled to herself.

"You still with me, Simon?!" he baaed. "Thank goodness." The three of them ran as fast as they could. They saw pressure plates behind the red line.

"Those must shut off the lava!"

"We need to get to them!" All three of them were about a meter away from the finish line. With their arms out, they all dove for the pressure plates. They tumbled onto them and all the lava was shut off behind them. Will kept his eyes closed. "Did... did we do it?"

"Yeah. We did."

Will opened his eyes to see his white fuzzy friend smiling at him. Will hugged him. "You made it! You the best sheep in the whole world, Simon." The sheep smiled and did a little wiggle dance. Will saw Lisa standing by the next door, leaning on the wall. "Lisa. Are you ok?"

Will went to her so he could see her face. She was crying. "Yeah. I'm fine." Will, seeing that she clearly wasn't fine, took her hand in his. She looked up. He smiled. "Alright. I... I got... I got burned."

"What happened?"

"I don't know how it happened. All I know is that close to the end of the race I felt a boiling pain in my foot. And now... it hurts too much to move."

"Walk. Maybe. But move? No way. Come on." Will gently picked her up so he could carry her. "Hopefully there's no more 'run for your life' challenges." Lisa giggled.