The Lioness: Change

Dianne's POV

written by rachelisnotawriter

I wasn't really crying about Tree.

~*~

I had to cry. I have held my tongue for so long. Too long, in fact. I couldn't hold back my tears with the news of the Tree. Analisa and the others didn't know at all. I placed a Kleenex under my lashes and swiped, letting it absorb the salty liquid from my eyes. Making up my mind, I stood up. I decided to go for a walk. I headed out of the room, setting my now dry eyes to the stairs. The house was so large that I could get lost easily, so I had to try different paths to get out. I turned left, and turned right and suddenly found myself in a dead end. I backtracked, and found myself in yet another dead end. There was a door to my left and an identical door on my right. I never got out without Analisa's guidance. I panicked. I shouted and shouted, but no one heard me. I had to find a way out. I tried turning the knob on the right. It was locked. I tried the left. It opened with a small flutter of my heart. It was highly polished so it didn't creak. There was a hallway behind the door. It was prettily furnished, with Indian rugs and white sofas with silky cushions. The only thing out of place was a rusty metal trapdoor planted in the middle of the room. I walked gingerly across the room, my back sticking firmly on the wall. My hands were shaking as I placed them on the wall beside me. I walked sideways, still sticking my back to the wall, and neared the trapdoor. I crouched and moved forward on my hands and knees, and placed my trembling palms on the trapdoor. I picked at the rusty lock with my usual hair pin, and it turned without a sound. To my surprise, the trapdoor sprang open silently in its own accord. The door looked rusty, but the bolts seemed new. I stifled a gasp aa I peered in. There was a silver ladder leading downwards. The room was lit with white strip lights, like a lab. The walls seemed white too, and lab equipment was everywhere. Bunsen burners crackling merrily, conical flasks filled with colorful liquids churning and giggling, and microscopes lying quietly on wooden benches, waiting to be looked into. My curiosity got the better of me, and I held the sides of the ladder and tested the first rung. It was stable. I climbed down, cursing my clumsiness, and landed on the room's floor. I lay my back on a pillar and turned my neck a little to survey my room. The trapdoor had closed itself, making the bright lights even brighter. There was another door at the end of the room. It opened as I laid my eyes on it. A man, wearing a white lab coat and misted goggles, entered the room. His face was obscured by a dark mask. I stiffened and stared at him as he took a glance at a microscope and stirred the silvery liquid in one of the flasks. It bubbled and frothed as he placed it on a Bunsen burner. He turned the gas tap, making the flame wheeze and then grow large. The silvery liquid turned gold in front of my eyes. The lab man put on a pair of safety gloves and grasped the flask. To my astonishment, he poured the gold liquid onto the floor. When the first drop reached the ground, it spread like a golden spider web. As more drops touched the floor, the web grew and expanded, until it covered the whole room, as the web came to the part of where I was standing on, I tensed and got ready to scream. But the golden web wasn't as hot as I expected. Its lines slid under my shoes and spiralled to the wall.

When it stopped expanding, golden lines reached up and knitted itself in the middle of the web. In a few minutes, a middle-sized golden cot 'grew' out. I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear it. That didn't make sense. It didn't. I opened them again and stuck my hand into my mouth to keep myself from screaming. I drew blood. A lion had appeared in the cot, writhing and kicking.

It was my brother.